Poisoned
by Cornerofmadness
Summary: Love is blind and Jessica hates it.


**Title**\- Poisoned

**Disclaimer**\- Not mine, Chris Fedak and Sam Sklaver owns it

**Summary **\- Love is blind and Jessica hates it.

**Notes**\- written for Brumeier in comment_fic for the prompt Prodigal Son, Any,  
_Love will make you blind; In the church of the poison mind_ (Culture Club)

XXX

Jessica leaned against the newly re-exposed doorway to Martin's basement domain. Her legs shook, nearly too weak to hold her. Barely aware of how she had walked here, she rested her hand on the ragged opening Malcolm had torn into the walled off room. _Don't open that door_, she had warned him then, was warning herself now. _Do not go in there_.

She stepped through regardless, fumbling for the light. Jessica took a ragged breath in, swearing she could smell the subtle woodsy scent of Martin's cologne. The bitter anger of those evenings before she knew what he was but thought he'd been cheating on her because of the cheap perfumes she had detected all flooded back to her. She dropped to the floor, pain shooting up through her knees and hip. Jessica ignored it, prostrating herself on the chilly flooring.

Rolling over, she stared at the ceiling trying to forget Gil's visit. How could she? Soon enough, if Ainsley obeyed her text to come home immediately, Jessica would have to relive the conversation. Malcolm was gone, taken by the monster who had called the old phone just a few feet from her. Was that why she had stumbled down here? As if she could forge a connection to the killer and from him to her son from that hunk of plastic. Malcolm was gone. He was most likely dead.

No, Jessica refused to believe that. She would _feel_ it if that were true. She had carried him inside her. If his life had ended, she'd feel the pain of it as sure as the kick to the ribs he used to give her. Jessica ran a hand through her hair, her fingers catching and tearing on it the snarls. She had told Malcolm not to open this door and now he was gone because he had. Her own sanity teetered on the precipice of following him.

"It's all your fault, Martin," she whispered, hating him in that moment.

How had she not known what he was? Love made you blind. She knew that. Her fevered brain pulled up lyrics from her youth, when she and Martin had shared such love and tenderness. _In the church of the poison mind_. Too upbeat a song for this occasion but fitting somehow. Martin's mind was poisoned and it had sickened her whole family. He'd left her friendless and brimming with guilt because she hadn't known and stopped him. She had _slept_ next to a monster, had let him _inside_ her never knowing the true depths of his sickness. She had loved him never knowing he was toxic.

The poison spread from there. Ainsley had his narcissism. Malcolm's entire off-kilter life had been dedicated to understanding the things his father had done to others, to him, even as he stumbled, barely clinging to his will to survive. And now he might not. Between Martin and Gil Arroyo leading him into the field of profiling from two different paths, Malcolm made himself a target worth eliminating to Martin's terrible protégé.

She wanted to destroy Martin. She had damaged Gil and his career by stealing that picture off his desk and publicizing it without permission but if it meant they might pull Martin from his cozy little cell in Claremont where he had nothing to worry him, it would be worth it. But what Jessica wanted to destroy most was the part of herself that she kept well medicated, the part that was screaming now because she hadn't taken over her usual dose of medication as much as she wanted to. Jessica needed her senses around her, to feel the agony of the moment her son lost his fight for life, to keep as keen as she could to help Gil and the team if possible to save Malcolm in time.

She hated everything Martin was and did. But the thing she hated most, what she downed Xanax like they were candy for was she still loved him. Or if not that, remembered their love far too fondly. She had felt it rear up the day she finally broke down after twenty years and visited him to plead for Malcolm's sanity. Seeing him again, the tousled curls she'd remembered running her fingers through, those bright intelligent eyes, all of it fired something in her again, rekindling those feelings of love. She wanted to hate him but she mostly ended up hating herself because she couldn't hate him completely enough.

"Mother!" Ainsley's voice came muffled through layers of flooring.

Jessica picked herself up slowly. She needed Ainsley to help her comb over every memory of every place Martin had taken them or Malcolm, to remember every friend he might have brought to the house. In those dark recesses of their mind might lurk a clue to finding her son. Ainsley probably wouldn't remember; she had been so young, but she could bolster her mother through this. Jessica regretted consigning all those photos to the fire. They might have held a clue. She told Gil about the box of memories she'd returned to Malcolm and he promised to send someone to the loft. Gil was at Claremont trying to get locations out of Martin. If he failed, Jessica would go herself and she wouldn't leave until Martin told her. If he didn't, she'd be leaving in a police car after she tore his throat out with one of her high heels.

That brutal thought in mind, Jessica steeled herself and marched upstairs to tell her daughter the horrible news, provided Ainsley's own contacts hadn't already informed her. Together they would do their best for Malcolm. It was the only thing she had left to her, her one shining hope. If she were very lucky, it would be enough.


End file.
